State v. Dezso
| Decision Date | 11 March 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. C0-92-1980,C0-92-1980 |
| Citation | 512 N.W.2d 877 |
| Parties | STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Gary Allan DEZSO, Petitioner, Appellant. |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
Considering the totality of the circumstances, the State has not sustained its burden of proof to show defendant voluntarily consented to a search of his wallet.
John M. Stuart, State Public Defender, Scott G. Swanson, Asst. State Public Defender, Minneapolis, for appellant.
Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., William F. Klumpp, Jr., Robert Stanich, Asst. Attys. Gen., St. Paul, and Kenneth Kohler, Nobles County Atty., Worthington, for respondent.
Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.
This case raises questions about the validity of the search of a motorist and his vehicle after the motorist has been stopped for speeding.
On the night of January 16, 1992, on Highway 60 in Nobles County, a state trooper stopped an eastbound pickup truck clocked at 63 m.p.h. in a 55 m.p.h. zone. The trooper's squad car was equipped with a video camera mounted on the dashboard, pointing forward, and included audio equipment to record conversations in the squad car. The officer activated the camera and then walked to the pickup stopped in front of the squad car.
The officer told the driver--defendant Gary Dezso--that he had been stopped for speeding and asked to see his driver's license. Defendant took his license out of his wallet and gave it to the officer. Following his standard procedure, the officer then asked defendant to come back and sit with him in the squad car.
Once in the squad car, the officer used his radio to request a license check. While waiting, defendant explained he was traveling home to Michigan from a construction job in California. When asked if he had any alcohol, weapons, or controlled substances in his pickup, defendant replied he did not. The officer then said, "Any objections if I were to take a look?" Defendant replied, "Yeah, if you want to." The two men, however, continued to talk.
Defendant admitted he had been speeding, and the officer replied he was only going to give defendant a warning ticket. Soon thereafter the dispatcher reported over the radio that defendant had a valid Michigan driver's license and there was no record of any Minnesota violations.
At this point, the officer returned the driver's license to defendant, but as he did so, he noticed that the defendant seemed to tilt his wallet away from the officer's view. Thinking that defendant was "trying to hide something," the officer then asked the defendant if he had anything else with his name on it. As the defendant removed various cards from the wallet to show the officer, the officer testified, "I leaned towards him a little bit looking at his wallet." Again, the defendant evasively tilted the wallet away from the officer's gaze.
The following conversation, as recorded on the audio tape, then occurred:
Officer: Mind if I take a look at your wallet?
Def.: No, it's just my stuff.
Officer: Can I take a look at the wallet?
Def.: Yeah, I got, ah [unintelligible] cards.
Officer: What do you got in your hand there?
Def.: Oh, a piece of paper.
Officer: Mind if I take a look at it?
Def.: Well, it's mine * * * not doing anything.
The officer testified at the omnibus hearing that he did not look at the piece of paper in defendant's hand because he interpreted defendant's response ("Well, it's mine * * * ") as a denial of consent to look at the piece of paper. It was during the above-quoted conversation, according to the officer's testimony, that defendant handed over the wallet; the defendant, on the other hand, testified that the officer grabbed the wallet from him. (Because the dashboard camera points forward and shows only the pickup truck parked ahead, the video is no help in explaining the wallet transfer.)
In going through the contents of the wallet, the officer discovered blotter acid (LSD). The officer then told defendant he believed he had probable cause to search the truck; and although he did not put defendant under arrest at this time, he did give defendant a Miranda warning. When asked if he had anything in the truck, defendant told him there was a .22 caliber rifle, a .22 caliber pistol, and some marijuana. And, indeed, this is what the officer found.
Defendant was arrested and subsequently charged with a number of offenses. At the omnibus hearing, defendant's motion to suppress the items seized as a result of the warrantless searches of his wallet and truck was denied. The trial judge concluded "that the Defendant, in the absence of any protest, voluntarily surrendered his wallet to the Trooper." The trial judge further reasoned that because the defendant had initially consented to a search of the pickup, the weapons and marijuana inevitably would have been discovered, and this discovery would, in turn, have provided probable cause for arrest and a search of defendant and his wallet.
Defendant was subsequently tried on stipulated facts on one charge, and the court found him guilty of fifth degree possession of a controlled substance (LSD). Defendant was sentenced to a stayed prison term, with the stay conditional on his serving 60 days in jail, and fined $1,150. The probationary jail term has been stayed pending appeal. In an unpublished order opinion, the court of appeals affirmed. We granted further review.
The first issue is whether the trooper gained possession of the wallet with the defendant's consent, i.e., with a consent voluntarily given, without coercion or submission to an assertion of authority. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 225, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 2046, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973). Put another way, the issue is "whether a reasonable person would have felt free to decline the officer['s] requests or otherwise terminate the encounter." Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, ----, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 2387, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991).
This requirement of voluntariness reflects "an accommodation of the complex values implicated in police questioning of a suspect." Bustamonte, 412 U.S. at 224-25, 93 S.Ct. at 2046. The police must be able to seek the cooperation and ask questions of individuals if the safety and security of the community is to be preserved. At the same time, individuals have a liberty interest, constitutionally protected, against unreasonable prying into their personal affairs. Id. So it is that an officer has a right to ask to search and an individual has a right to say no. Questioning by the police, for the innocent as well as the criminally-implicated, even under benign circumstances, can be an intimidating experience; but reasonable persons understand that this is part of the "accommodation of the complex of values" involved. Consequently, involuntariness of a consent to a police request is...
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